


503

by cementality (rinsed)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, One Word Prompts, inspired by Tobu Ishi's Edwin 100 Themes, obviously most other characters in their lives appear now and then
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-08-19 14:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 5,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8212324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinsed/pseuds/cementality
Summary: Inspired by Tobu Ishi's Edwin 100 Themes (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2356021/1/EdWin-100-Themes), this consists of a number of short prompts (mostly one word) / one shots ranging from fluff, angst, etc.a tribute for fma day





	1. Evidence

**Author's Note:**

> some of these were written a long time ago and are kind of weak - I wanted to upload this for fma day so apologies for that lol

You weren't sure what you were expecting when you first cracked open Ed's watch. In hindsight, it was a dumb decision — clearly he had sealed it for a reason — but your immature audacity drove you against your common sense. You know better. But the idea of knowing something about Ed that he didn't want you to — an opportunity to ridicule, embarrass — was too valuable for you to possibly pass up. However, the minute you saw that engraving, your stomach just about dropped to your feet. You recognised the date immediately; it was evidence of both an end and a new beginning. This revelation made you all the more aware of Paninya's presence behind you. What was in Ed's watch was private; only a handful of people could possibly understand the depth behind the date. It felt like an unspoken and mutual understanding, a pact, between all of you. A sense of guilt washed over you as soon as your eyes scanned the carved letters. Yes — it was sealed for a reason.

"What is it, Winry?"

Ed and Al's drive was something that you'd always greatly admired. When everything seemed bleak, they had always found the courage and persistence to keep moving forward, even burning their own home down as a resolve, so that they could be sure they would never give up. Their courage inspired you each time you thought of it. Ed and Al needed to continue their journey without looking back, and you needed to work hard to make sure of that. That's it. You were going to ask Mr. Dominic for an apprenticeship one more time.


	2. I'm Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: nightmares, unreality, blood

Edward was no stranger to nightmares, but he always slept soundly, save for the occasional grunt or murmur as he flopped from his side to his front to his back to his side (always taking the covers with him, much to Winry's chagrin). Winry didn't know if it was because he trained himself to do it, or if it came to him naturally, but he could always hide when he was having them. He was so used to them. He didn't move, or make any sound. The only giveaway was that he would frown. Whenever she asked him about why he was frowning in his sleep, he'd dismiss it as "just a dream". He was all too familiar with nightmares.

Winry, however, was not.

So, when she awoke with wet, fearful, paralyzed eyes and sobs burning, coating the sides of her throat like tar, it was all she could do to try and not wake Ed. He was no stranger to seeing her cry, but still, there was no point in her waking him all because of something that wasn't real — despite how real it felt, how real her terror was. She struggled to shake the paranoia, the feeling of nails under her skin, the images of her parents and Granny and Hughes and Gracia and Elicia and the Amestrian Military, including Riza and Colonel Mustang and, more terrifyingly, the Fuhrer and Kimblee, and especially the images of everyone she cared for, and all those who had taken care of her, in pain. The most terrifying was one specific dream that consisted of Edward and Alphonse lying in the patient's beds at her home in Resembool, as if they are about to be fitted with automail; but their bodies were intact and unharmed. And slowly, Al's body begins to disintegrate and unravel into a pool of sickening red liquid which begins to fill the room, Ed's arm and leg quickly following, assorted human and automail and armour limbs floating in the cesspool, her losing sight of her friends, calling for them but not hearing their voices, while the liquid fills her eyes and lungs and scathes her skin. It is here where she wakes up, attempting to quell cries that hurt more scratching at the inside of her throat than they would have escaping. The worst part is the complete feeling of helplessness and desperation she feels. This is her least favourite, and the one she had that night.

She tried to placate herself as quietly as possible, wiping her eyes carefully and swallowing any sobs she had rising in her throat. Yet, her attempts were in vain. She felt the figure beside her rouse, as if it knew, the silhouette hoisting itself into a sitting position in the darkness.

"Winry?"

His voice was hoarse and sleepy, dazed and unaware.   
She finally released a sob she had been stifling, her hand in front of her mouth, trembling in a cold sweat.  
He said her name again, but this time with increased urgency and concern. His hands found her shoulders as he turned her to face him, pulling her into a hug as one hand held the back of her head against his collarbone. She managed to choke out a feeble "it's fine" between racked sobs and ragged breaths. But he knew.  
"It's okay. It's okay." he repeated quietly, her breath steadying as she began to calm down. "I'm here."  
He was no stranger to nightmares.


	3. Puppy Love

"She's quite the heartbreaker, isn't she?" remarked Winry, chuckling as she watched two young boys fighting over who would get to play with Elicia Hughes.   
"Yeah." Ed sniggered, resting his head on his hand and his elbow against the table. Winry had offered to watch the little Hughes girl while Gracia was running errands, and Ed, with no other plans, joined her (under the guise of seeing if there would be leftover apple pie in the fridge).

"No, 'mgonna marry Elicia!"  
"No, you're not 'sposed to! I am because I'm older by two months, see?"

Winry smirked as she watched this argument unfold. It was almost like it was yesterday when her, Edward and Alphonse were having this exact argument.  
It seemed Ed had let his competitive side get the better of him, jumping at an opportunity to show up his younger brother, like he always did.

"Winry, you'll marry me when we're older, right? Right?"  
"No, Al! I'm older, so it'll be me who marries her!"  
"But you're a meanie! I'm a gentleman."  
"It woul'nt be neither of you! I don't wanna marry a boy shorter than me!"  
" _What?!_ You can't judge a boy 'cuz of how tall he is! Height-"  
"I can too!"  
" _Wh-_ Can _not!_ "

She smiled warmly at these memories. It seemed like only yesterday they were in Resembool, young and carefree, their highest priority being getting home in time for dinner.

"Brings back some memories, huh?"  
"What?" replied Ed.  
"Don't you remember?"  
"Remember what?"  


Despite his attempts to fool her, there was an evident red blush surfacing on his cheeks that he was lucky she didn't notice.

"Elicia and Christopher sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" chanted the other boy. "You're in _loooooove._ "  
"Nothing." Winry smiled.


	4. Gloves

Edward always wore gloves.  
Initially, this had offended Winry, her obviously jumping to the conclusion that he was embarrassed of her automail, hiding her slaved-over handiwork from others.  
However, as she got older, the more she began to understand that he wore them not because he was hiding her handiwork, but because he was ashamed of the reason he needed automail in the first place. He didn't want to be reminded. He didn't want to be asked questions. He didn't want to be reminded of the consequences, of what he had done to himself and his brother and his family.  
She knew too well it was the consequences of his actions — especially what happened to Al — that affected him the most.  
And while this was very true, and made up almost all of the reason he wore the gloves, there was also a small hint of something else - he also wore the gloves because there was... _something_ about his automail arm. He couldn't exactly pinpoint what it was — the arm reminded him of her, and she reminded him of home, and left a strange feeling in his stomach, which he would usually blame on the food he'd eaten. He'd look at it and feel weird; he once caught himself admiring the intricate details of the automail with an odd feeling of warmth, of admiration and impression, spreading in his chest - a feeling he quickly dismissed, followed by mild embarrassment at the mention of Winry's name for the next couple of days for reasons he then was unsure of. The gloves were a symbol of what he was not ready to admit to himself. The gloves were a distraction, a cover up.


	6. Nosebleed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: blood

Having no arm for a year and then obtaining one much heavier than his old one was a particularly disorienting experience for Edward.  
On the night he first got his new arm, he rested for a while, Winry and Pinako cleaning up their supplies. When picking up a wrench, Winry heard the boy stir slightly. He lazily propped himself up on his left arm. "What time is—" he began, before raising his right arm to rub his eyes. But in his delirium, his heavier arm moved both with more force than his human arm would have, and he hit his nose. Hard. "Ack— _Jesus!_ " The boy exclaimed, bringing his human arm up the quell the ruby red running out of his nose and down his face.  
" _Ed!_ " groaned Winry, moving to pick up a rag from the table.  
Pinako began a spiel about how automail was a lot heavier and therefore would move with more force than his human arm used to, and that he had to be more careful.  
Ed grumbled as Winry wiped the blood from his face. " _Yeah, yeah… be more careful, I got it…_ "


	7. Stare

Once Alphonse had lost his body, he became much more observant; losing nearly every sense except sight and hearing, he had to pay closer attention to everything to interpret the surroundings he was experiencing.

Once, Winry had come to visit them on a rush call to repair Ed's automail ~~(of course, he had broken it _again_ )~~. After his automail had been repaired, he settled on the couch across the room from Alphonse while Winry walked over to the telephone. She was only with them for a quick visit - she was calling Garfiel to tell him she would be able to return to Rush Valley the following day. Ed, who had been preoccupied with examining his leg, lifted his head at the sound of her "Hello?", before sitting up slowly. And Al noticed something; Ed was staring at her. His eyes followed her hands as they absentmindedly played with the telephone cord, the path her hair took as it fell from the top of her head to the small of her back, and then lingered at her face, almost as if he was studying her features, the ghost of a frown resting on his forehead. Al wasn't sure what to call the look on Ed's face, in Ed's eyes, as he did this — it was almost like a look of realisation, the face of someone who had only just noticed something that always there. There was a hint of confusion, too - as if he was questioning why he had never noticed before. He was looking at her like she was the only thing in the room.

Alphonse had always known, in the back of his mind, how Edward felt about Winry. However, Edward's feelings for her had been such a running joke over their growing up that it was an idea Al never even really considered anymore, seeing as it was almost a running gag at this point. But to see it playing out as more than a joke, to see it in reality, was almost startling. It might have been here that Edward's feelings for Winry were starting to become reality, rather than just a joke in Al's head. Alphonse had always known that Edward had feelings for Winry - but it was only here that Edward began to realise it.


	8. Hush

Ed and Winry rushed behind the short stone wall and ducked down, the cold Briggs air biting at their ears as crouched, Ed quickly transmuting the wall upwards, making it look like another wall of the room, trapping them in darkness.  
Silence surrounded them, save for the sounds of heavy breathing coming from both from running, which left both feeling suspenseful as they looked at each other through the darkness. They could just make out each other's faces, as he held onto her arm. Unbeknownst to him, she had noticed that when they were in danger, or running from something, he had started to do this thing where he held her arm, or held a hand out in her direction, as if ready to step in front of her.

"D'you think they're—" began Ed.  
" _Shhhh!"_ hissed Winry. Both held their breath in dread, a sick anticipation settling in their stomachs. Distant footsteps grew louder and closer.  
"If we don't find the Fullmetal brat and his stupid girlfriend, Kimblee's just about gonna feed us to the Briggs bears...!"  
Ed just about choked. " _Girlfriend?!?! I—_ " he whisper-yelled.   
Winry interrupted this with a hard kick to Ed's non-metal shin. "Shut _up!_ "  
He hissed. " _God, do you have to kick so hard?!"  
"Ed, be quiet!"_  
Both bickered under their breath until they stopped dead in their tracks, silenced by noises on the other side of the wall.  
"D'ya think any of these walls have been transmuted?"  
" _Crap!"_ hissed Ed. " _Quick, come here."_  
He pulled Winry into the farthest corner of the long but extremely narrow 'room' they'd created.  
"Nah, they'd have marks from the transmutation on the bottom of 'em. Kid's good, but he's not that good." Both sighed in relief.  
"Still, bash through 'em like in the other rooms, couldn't do no harm. It's not like anyone uses these buildings anymore, anyhow."  
" _Shit! _"__ hissed Winry.  _ _  
"_ Winry, listen... _"__ whispered Ed _ _. " _R__ ight when they bash through this wall, I'm gonna put up a wall in front of us, since the noise will be a distraction. They can only bash a hole through the middle, so seeing as we're in the corner it should just look like the wall of the room _ _."___  
" _What? That's crazy—_!" she began, but was stopped short by the sound of a crash, and then crumbling, on the other side of the room.   
Ed crouched down, ready to clap his hands.  
Another crashing and crumbling. "That's the next wall." he said. "Ready?"  
A flash of electric blue light, and a wall had materialised in front of both, confining them in a small crevice between the two walls. The moment of anticipation seemed to last decades.

"Nope!"  
"Other wall!"  
Crash. Crumble.  
"Nah, nothing here!"  
"I can see that, stupid."  
"Shit… he better be in here somewhere! If he's gotten away again, with the hostage especially…"  
Ed and Winry waited for a moment. _  
"Do you think it's sa—"_ started Winry.  
_"Shhhhh._ " his left hand gripped her arm. He frowned in concentration. _"We don't know if they're gone yet."_ His voice was softer and slower than its usual overly loud, argumentative tone that both he and her always used to speak to each other with.  
His hand was surprisingly warm on her arm, seeing as they were in Briggs, and he frowned as he listened intently. _  
"Okay, we need to work out how we'll get out of here."_  
_"Okay."_  
Winry wouldn't admit it, but there was something she liked about the closeness, the stillness, the silence between them both.


	9. Magic

A flash of blue, electrical light flashed in front of Winry's eyes, and she gasped in both fright and excitement, jumping back at the unfamiliarity.  
"What did you do?" she exclaimed. "Is that magic? Like the magicians do?"  
"No, stupid-head, it's alchemy!" retorted a young Ed, leaning over the small toy dog he had alchemised out of dirt on the ground.  
"Hey! I said not to call me stupid-head anymore!"  
"Yeah? What're you gonna do about it?"  
A wicked grin spread across the young girl's face. "I'm gonna tell granny!"  
This was a game changer.  
"Wait, no, Winry, don't!"  
But she'd already made up her mind, marching triumphantly up the hill.  
" _Winryyy!_ " he whined, before grabbing her arm. "Stop! I'll make you something, okay?"  
She turned on her heel, narrowing her eyes at him.  
"You'll magic me something?"  
"It's alchemy, st— Winry."  
"You have to magic me a doll."  
"I said it's alch—" he sighed. " _Fiiiiiiiine._ "  
"Good! Okay, she has to have long hair and she has to have an automail arm just like the woman who came here for repairs this morning and she has to…"  
They wandered back into the garden, Winry giggling gleefully at the idea of her new invention while Edward trudged beside her, a face like a thunderstorm.


	11. Progress

Looking back, Ed can't pinpoint the exact time he started to love Winry.

It wasn't like how it was for her - there was no slow build up to a sudden realisation of what had always been. There was no quick understanding that it was the truth, either - in fact, it was something he wrestled with for a while. In hindsight, maybe when they were both too young to even understand what love even was other than something parents spoke about but he would still blush when she hugged him, that could have been denial. Later on he'd ask himself why he would blush.

For Ed, it was progressive. It was something that built over time without him even realising, without him having any control over it. It was the little things. It was the way he'd began to fiddle with his automail hand, began to examine every detail of it, for no real reason. It was the way he would listen more closely to the things she said. It was the way he'd began to wonder what advice she would give him in a situation - hell, it was the way he started listening to her advice. It was the way a visit stopped meaning a reprimanding over the condition of his automail and started meaning an opportunity to see her. The way he had started to feel guilt when they'd argue like they did when they were fifteen. It was the way he would make her laugh harder than she used to. The way the two of them talked the same amount that they used to, but this time it was different in a way that couldn't quite be explained - it was like the two had stopped closing each other off. It was the way that when she was talking, he never wanted her to stop. The way his disdain for her enthusiasm for automail grew into admiration, his eyerolls into an involuntary grin. The way he began to feel safer when she was around. The way he began to dream about home more than he used to. The way she and Granny made him feel like family, like he belonged when he came back to Resembool, rather than like a criminal, like someone who had committed the ultimate taboo. Made him feel like Resembool was still somewhere for him to return to. It was in the way he began to worry in a way he hadn't before, wonder whether she'd be okay with what he was doing - not like she was a liability or like she was fragile, but rather like he didn't want to hurt her. He'd always worry about her finding out about what he was doing, but it started to change - before, he would worry about her finding out whatever trouble he'd been getting himself into because he didn't want to get caught, reprimanded, in trouble. But now, it was because he didn't want to worry her, to inconvenience her, to hurt her.  
The way that after he had stopped her from shooting someone, he had realised how amazing she was, how much she had to throw away - how much he couldn't let her throw away. He had always known she was incredible, but it was then he realised that he couldn't let her reduce herself - he had always known her worth, but it was only then he had started to appreciate it. There was no beginning; maybe it was when they grew up and he began to understand that their lives had bent to fit each other's, formed around each other's too much for the two of them to be without each other.

He had grappled with it for a while, pinning his shift in feelings towards her as simple growing up and maturing, as no longer being so reluctant to admit that yes, he did care about her and that yes, he did miss her, as appreciation for her and Granny's consistent presence in his life. But the other things - things like how he'd begun to love watching her work, watching her concentrate, the way her hair fell, the way he began to harbour a new-found fondness for her eyes, but stopped being able to quite meet them when she spoke to him sometimes - were harder to dismiss.

However, when they were together, it was all so easy. Everything was easy. They fell into loving each other like it was nothing - the hardest part was getting him to realise it, to accept it, and then to risk their friendship by admitting it to each other.

There was no beginning, there was no exact moment when it happened. It had just snowballed into something that he could no longer ignore, something that didn't catch him by surprise but shocked him that it had been happening for so long without him even noticing. And from there, became truer, stronger, unquestionable. It was progressive.


	12. Spoil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year x

"We got any milk?" Edward mumbled through a yawn he doesn't bother to stifle, leaning laxly into the refrigerator, one hand resting on the door with another hanging loosely at his side.

"Thought you didn't like it." Winry responded, without looking up from her own breakfast.

"... it's not bad in a bowl of cereal." he uttered.

She smiled to herself. "No, we don't."

He groaned, audibly and  _not at all sarcastically_ , throwing his head back. A small smirk tugged at Winry's lips at the melodrama the boy never seemed to grow out of.

After a few moments of careless rummaging around, he grunted: "Yeah, we do!"

"It's spoiled."

"What do you mean 'spoiled'? It-" he opened the bottle cap, sniffed loudly and immediately coughed. "- _smells fine!_ " he choked.

She looked over at the boy's sheepish face. "Really?"

"Well, sure, it smells kinda bad, but all milk smells bad. It's milk."

She raised an eyebrow in his direction, and his face immediately soured.

"Whatever, Winry!"

 

He made a point to pour the milk into the cereal front of her, and ate every bite with obstinance - she swore to herself that she could almost see two bull horns growing out of the side of his head.

 

Later that evening, while wandering the house, she heard Ed groaning, and couldn't help but allow herself to chuckle for a moment.

She opened his bedroom door to the sight of Ed lying in on his bed in the fetal position, cursing dairy under his breath. After a moment he noticed Winry's presence, and his face admitted all the defeat she needed to see.

After bringing him medicine, she sat on his bed, bombarded with complaints such as "You're always telling me to drink milk to grow, and look where it got me! That creepy, gross-  _cow juice_ -"

She couldn't say she minded too much, though.


	13. Ice Cream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> modern/college au  
> -  
> ed jokes about having automail but both of his arms are human so i guess he just has an automail leg i don't really know how that takes place in this universe but it's 4:53 am let's just not question it  
> i feel like this had the potential to be good and i didn't do it justice i've been looking at it too long i'll reread and hopefully make it better but for now i hope you enjoy it it's slightly longer i guess (or maybe i just have more line breaks who knows lol lol lol)

Winry couldn't say that there was any good reason why her and Edward were in an empty, too-bright-for-sore-student-eyes 7/11 at close to two in the morning.

It started with a knock at her door - she was adding the finishing touches to her research paper on "Robotic Exoskeletons - The Next Step In Medical History" when a set of knuckles attempted to disrupt her train of thought. However, she was so wired in, hunched over in front of her screen, that she hadn't even noticed. A second went by and a notification pushed through by her phone appeared in the upper right corner of her screen: _"hey open ur door"_.

She rolled her eyes and dismissed it - he would have to wait a couple seconds for her to finish her amendments to her introduction.

_"WINRY"_

_"I KNOW YOU'RE THERE I CAN HEAR YOU DOING THAT THING WHEN YOU BREATHE WEIRDLY HEAVY WHILE YOU TYPE"_

She scoffed at the remark and opened up her message app.

_"I do not!"_

_"Can you let me in please"_

_"I'm busy, what do you want"_

_"wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnryyyyy"_

She minimized the app and focused on her final corrections, knowing that she'd have to deal with this when she was done.

_"Winry"_

_"Winry"_

_"Winry"_

_"Winry"_

_"Winry"_

_"COME ON"_

_"Are you just gonna let me stand out here in the cold"_

_"I'm gonna freeze"_

_"My automail is gonna give me frostbite is that what u want"_

_"It's already getting hard to type oooooooow"_

_"Winy i realiy think uur gona hav tocomwe anad givkem me a hakfnd here"_

_"Mayeb a whple leg the way thingfs r lokging"_

She couldn't help but simultaneously grin and roll her eyes at the absurdity of it all. She pressed save on her document and quickly responded:

_"You're standing in a heated hallway you drama queen"_

She shut her laptop and sighed as she walked to the door, turning the handle and opening it to an annoyingly smug, grinning Edward Elric, clad in thick black sweatpants and a black hoodie, blonde hair in the same signature braid, but slightly messier than her memory recalled.

" _Finally._ " he scoffed, letting himself in.

Winry turned along to face him, hand still resting on the cold metal of the doorknob. She stared at him and he looked back at her, in this annoyingly smug way. After a few seconds, she interjected with: " _Well?_ " 

"Well?"

"What do you want?"

"Jeez, Winry, I decide to pay my friend a visit and-"

She leaned back, raising an eyebrow cynically.

"Really, what do you want?"

He paused. "Ice cream."

" _Ice cream?_ Weren't you just complaining about how cold it was outside?"

(Well, ' _outside',_ as in, the hall.)

"Well, that was mainly just to get you to let me in."

"... Whatever. I don't have any ice cream, so..."

"Of course you don't."

She frowned. "So...?"

He grinned. "Let's go to 7/11."

After a few moments of debate that she knew she would lose - that aggravating boy  _knew_ how to pester you until you agreed, the way an annoying brother could - she was pulling on the first pair of sneakers she saw.

 

* * *

 

The pair stepped out into the light of the streets - it was quiet, most of the students being inside their own rooms, but there was still a familiar feeling of _life_ that could be felt in the air. It might have been from the student flats surrounding them - but it might have been from him.

The cold air was full and foggy - it was the kind of cold that felt hot (as oxymoronic as it sounds), the kind of cold where you couldn't tell if it hurt or if you liked it. The fog filled air made the white light of the streetlamps pool in a haze, and the soft, icy-cold of the atmosphere made the ground look like it was made of glitter when in the light, making the quiet, otherwise dark streets feel like a dream. 

The pair meandered out into the low atmosphere, heading in the direction they knew that the closest convenience store was. Edward drifted towards the middle of the empty road, the pale blue light of the night spilling over him, and the two continued to walk, the trees lining the sides of the road so heavily that it felt like they were the only people for miles, in the only real place for miles, the white lines of the road marking the distance they travelled. She counted them in her head as they disappeared behind the two.

On their walk they mainly teased each other about her absorption in her work - but her trait of passion was something he endlessly admired - and his impulsive, I'll-do-it-when-it-needs-to-be-done attitude - but his ability to focus on living when it mattered was something she endlessly admired.

After a few minutes, the neon green and yellow came into view, along with the empty parking lot, growing closer as they moved forward. In the hazy, quiet early hours, the whole setting didn't feel real.

The automatic door broke the untouched silence of the store, letting out a small 'ding' as they walked through. They looked towards the bored teenager sitting at their phone behind the cashier - almost as obvious a college student as the two of them, clad in their sweatpants and hoodies, and in 7/11 in the small hours of the morning.

They made their way towards the freezer section, Winry flexing and unflexing her cold-stiffened hands as they walked.

They turned towards the fogged-up glass doors, slightly more than an arm's length between the two of them.

"Anything you have in mind?" she asked, nonchalantly. His head shifted downwards as he scanned the lower levels of the fridge in front of him.

"Not exactly."

"You really don't have a flavour in mind? What did you mean when you said you wanted ice cream?"

"Like..." he mumbled, his focus on scanning the frozen aisles rather than on his words. "Like, the concept of ice cream."

"The  _concept_ of ice cream?" she chuckled.

He snickered, his focus still on the fridges. "Yeah."

As his head moved to his right to examine other brands, his focus shifted from the ice creams to Winry's hands, which were still cold.

"Whoa, your hands..."

She looked down at them as he moved to pick up the hand closest to him, the distance closing more and more from over an arm's length to eventually nothing when his hand made contact with her own. He moved it closer to his and looked at it. It was red, almost purple, her knuckles a darker shade than the rest. The kind where when you touch it, it goes white before returning. She wasn't as cold as her hands would imply.

"Are you cold?"

"Not really - definitely not that cold."

"This is probably why you're not cold."

"How so?"

"Your skin looks purple because your blood vessels constrict in the cold to reduce heat loss."

She forgot how precocious he could be.

"Oh. Like how they expand when it's hot?"

"Yeah."

He turned back to the ice creams, but his hand remained on hers. Not that it bothered her - his hand was warm, much warmer than her own. She smiled to herself at the gesture, pretending not to notice the soft heat forming on the boy's cheek. She looked back at the ice creams, attributing it to the cold weather, only to grin again as she felt the slight raise in pulse from his hand.

After a beat, she asked him: "You know what you want yet?"

He considered this for a moment, and responded "No...", continuing to scan the aisle. He paused, before asking: "What do you like?"

"Strawberry."

" _Really?_ " he teased.

"Hey! What's wrong with strawberry?"

He grinned. "Nothing."

He opened the fridge and leaned down, picking up a pint of strawberry.

"I guess it's just not what I expected."

"And what did you expect?"

"Crab."

She hit his arm with her free hand, sniggering alongside him.

After careful consideration, he seemed to decide on a flavour. And with this decision came a dilemma; his left arm held the ice cream, his right arm held Winry's hand. So, he put the ice cream on the floor, picked up the flavour he had decided on - Blue Moon, which she couldn't help but smile at - placed one tub atop the other, picked up the two and held them under his arm, and shut the fridge with his foot.

He paid the cashier and the bag remained in his left hand, and his hand remained warm in hers the entire walk home, the white lines of the road coming and going between the two the same way they had before, simultaneously paled and darkened in the light of the night, or rather, the morning.

 


	14. Kids

in Resembool, there's a farm full of sheep on the way to your house

the people there know me, know my family, they wave when they see me and tell me they remember when i was only _this_  big

there's the hill we used to roll down

there's the schoolyard we played at

me, you and my brother

you fell over and skinned your knee once and i told you to stop crying, but i helped you clean it when i realised how much it looked like it hurt

i did feel bad when i made fun of you for crying about it, but i didn't want to admit it

so i helped you without saying anything

there's the gate our parents would stand each side of and talk about things we didn't understand

there's the old house we weren't sure if anyone ever really lived in

there's the church

there's the corn field where our mother would work

and there's us years ago

way, way at the end of your garden - or was it the big field that swallowed the horizon that your house just happened to lie on - there was this river we weren't supposed to play in

we would climb the trees and hide ourselves in the bushes

Alphonse would always hide behind the blackberry one and we would pretend we never knew where he was because he was so young, and we felt so much older than him, even though a year is hardly any difference

we were just kids the same

but you couldn't tell us that

when we had our minds on something it became set in stone

we're both as bullheaded as each other

but even when we would fight

you would say you'd tell granny

that's what you always said

but you never really did

i would tell you to go away

but i don't think i liked it when you did

it always felt too different, wrong, as if something was missing

i think that as much as i acted like i hated having you around, it was never fun without you

i think the best parts between the two of us were when you and i teamed up

whether it was to scare Alphonse or surprise our parents or keep secrets

when we were in a pact, in a team, there was no more boundaries or caring about how we "didn't like each other"

when we were in something together, it was good

as we grew up i think we realised we were better as a team

not only you and i, but you, me and Alphonse

i don't think i ever really realised it

but i was always glad that even after most of our links were severed we never let each other go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhh i don't think i like this but i kind of do


End file.
